Professor Wace's many distinguished contributions to archaeology have been in a variety of fields. In all, however, he has kept an eye on the technical side of the problem, which so often illuminates our research. I, therefore, offer this investigation in his honour.After Mr. Charles F. Binns had in 1929 published his theory of the firing of Athenian vases successively under oxidising, reducing, and re-oxidising conditions it became clear that the glaze on Greek vases turned red or black according to the conditions of the firing. This theory has recently been endorsed and amplified by Mr. Theodor Schumann, a ceramic chemist, who, at the instigation of the well-known archaeologist Mr. Carl Weickert, conducted during the war a series of experiments in the chemical laboratory of the Schütte Akt. Ges. für Tonindustrie in Heisterholz, Westphalia, and at long last successfully imitated the Attic black glaze. Like Binns, he used as the only ingredients for the glaze a clay that contained iron—i.e. red-burning—and a small quantity of alkali (potash or soda). His important new contribution was the peptising of the clay, whereby he eliminated the heavier particles. By using only the fluid made of the smaller and therefore lighter particles of the clay, he obtained a glaze of remarkable thinness, equal in quality and appearance to the Attic one.
